How to: Find original photo files in iPhoto
January 8th, 2009
If you use iPhoto on your Mac (ok you use it, because it is the most commonly used application in iLife suite and comes pre-installed with any new Mac), you’ve noticed that iPhoto keeps all your photos in a file called iPhoto library. The point is that iPhoto library is a package, not a single file. To view its contents and find your original photo files:
- Left-click (or ctrl+click) the iPhoto library file which is in your user>pictures folder, select show package contents and
- Navigate to “originals” folder and that’s it! You can now view, edit, move or delete your original photo files!
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February 9th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Neat tip, thanks.
I’m getting started with Lightroom and would like to import originals from iPhoto. How to do that?
thanks again
February 10th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
@David: Find the original files as I described above, select them all and import them to Lightroom. I do not have Lightroom on my Mac (I use Aperture), so there may be an option from automating import your photos from iPhoto! Hope I helped!
May 19th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
This is great, thanks! But what if I edited my photos with iPhoto on Mac #1 and now I want to transfer them to Mac #2? How can I transfer the photos *and* preserve my edits? … Both Macs are running the same version of iPhoto (7.1.5).
Thanks!
October 14th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
For some reason I don’t have a modified file for 2009 – so now if I try to view these images on iphoto i can see a thumbnail but can’t open the file, it just shows an exclamation mark. Please help!
November 10th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Thank you that was what I had been looking for!
November 16th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
@Katie: that probably means that the files have changed location and that they are no longer in your iphoto folder! The best solution is to scan again your mac for images!
November 28th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Aaaaah. Thanks! That makes perfect sense.
February 20th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Hi, I get a similar issue to katie. I can see thumbnails of my modified files, but when I try to open them the iPhoto viewer goes black. Examining the image files in the iPhoto modified folder, they show with a generic .bmp icon and are all 0 bytes! What’s that all about?
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:36 am
@Harry: Launch iPhoto and click iPhoto—>Preferences—>Advanced. Make sure that “copy items to iphoto library” is checked. If it isn’t, check it and scan your mac for images one more time
August 20th, 2010 at 2:35 am
When importing older photos to iPhoto the original date and time taken file info is replaced by the date and time the import occurred. It’s as if a new file is created and there is no indication when the original photo was taken. Is there a way to find the original time and date in the file info somewhere?
November 5th, 2010 at 3:20 am
No there isn’t but this was an iPhoto bug. Photo info is stored within the photo file. Update your iPhoto installation and this should be solved! Hope I helped!
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:18 pm
[...] ago I wrote a post about finding your original photo files from photos stored in your iPhoto library using Finder. [...]
October 23rd, 2011 at 8:26 pm
I don’t have the original folder. Can it be under another name? Maybe masters?
November 21st, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Thanks! couldn’t find them for the life of me!
December 5th, 2011 at 1:00 am
My originals are all in the iphoto package where they should be, I think. But they don’t show up on the app….. can you help?
December 6th, 2011 at 6:26 am
@Kiersten: File>Import and import your iPhoto library again! That should help!
December 19th, 2011 at 5:31 am
Thanks, I was stuck on this too